This news conference was part of a trilateral meeting of Vladimir Putin, President of Iran Hassan Rouhani and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. Putin and Rouhani appear in the video.

America has been trying to isolate and weaken Iran, which has both considerable oil reserves and a catbird seat on the shores of the oil-rich Caspian Sea.

America has backed wars in the region, invaded neighbours, and tried to undermine support for Russia in the Middle East because it wants permanent influence there. Obama, in his negotiations about Iran’s use of nuclear power, may have been trying to keep some communications open, but Mr Trump has breached all democracy by openly threatening Iran. Iran (now that Syria has been crippled) is the leading technological and socially progressive power in the region, bitterly resented by Saudi Arabia and Israel. Now, apparently ironically, but actually quite naturally, Russia has resealed and expanded its friendship with Iran. In so doing, it has made Iran much more secure.

How will the United States, NATO and the EU respond to this?
We already know it: other attempts to destabilize, other wars, arrogance and bullying, other crimes against humanity, that will remain unpunished for a long time… … …

(By Alexander Mercouris ~ Russia Insider) ~ The Russians called the EU’s bluff by pulling out of the project instead of accepting the EU’s conditions and are cutting deals with China and Turkey instead.

The reaction to the cancellation of the Sound Stream project has been a wonder to behold and needs to be explained very carefully.

In order to understand what has happened it is first necessary to go back to the way Russian-European relations were developing in the 1990s.

… … … the Europeans did not envisage that Russia would just supply them with energy. … … … The EU calls this “energy security” – a euphemism for the extraction of energy in other countries by its own companies under its own control.

The reason the Russians decided they could cancel it is because they have decided Russia’s future is in selling its energy to China and Turkey and other states in Asia (more gas deals are pending with Korea and Japan and possibly also with Pakistan and India) than to Europe. … That is why in their characteristically direct way, rather than accept the Europeans’ conditions, the Russians pulled the plug on it… … … Under pressure from individuals like Senator John McCain, the Bulgarian leadership behaved like the provincial politicians they are, and tried to run at the same time with both the EU hare and the Russian hounds. The result of this imbecile policy is to offend Russia, Bulgaria’s historic ally, whilst ensuring that the Russian gas which might have flown to Bulgaria and transformed the country, will instead flow to Turkey, Bulgaria’s historic enemy… … …

Putin, thanks to the sanctions against Russia (unfortunate and uncoordinated maneuvers to try to weaken the Asian Bear), uses the weakness of relations between the US and its allies, put a neck loop to Erdogan’s Turkey, excludes from the game the unreliable and corrupted Bulgaria, puts in line the European puppets, strengthens the role of unquestionable Russian leadership on the international chessboard.

Putin, in few cheeky and daring moves, beats the competition of the regimes of the Gulf (offering an immediate opportunity of oil industry for the Turks vultures), turning them away from the ambitions on Syrian oil fields and from an impossible pipeline from the south’s regimes (Saudi-Qatar), trapped in the Daesh’s quicksands of Iraq…

Only a true master of chess and judo (judo uses the energy of the opponents to turn it against them) can be able to take advantage from the foolhardy attacks of his opponents, and the Russian government, headed by Putin, is demonstrating a great strategic ability, but also the capacity to unite to pacify, rather than divide by wage war.

The game is fully open and to play, with a scenario that changes unpredictably, day by day: do not underestimate the chessplayer Putin and never take for granted his moves…

NOTICE TO READERS

These infos are not intended to be shocking or to glorify violence in any way. These articles/images/videos are for educational purposes only, for documenting and try to explain the backdrop of a historical ruthless and bloody war, whose characteristics and details are routinely distorted and smothered by the dominant media.